Dark Side of the Moon
by Platinum Dragoness
Summary: Diamond, Sapphire, the Black Moon Clan, and the Ayakashi Sisters on Nemesis. gen and various het pairings, warnings for cousin incest, OCs
1. A Spring Shower

Title: A Spring Shower  
Disclaimer: I don't own Sailor Moon.  
Version: Anime

"Brother, come inside!"

He didn't answer, so Sapphire climbed toward him, wincing as a tiny rock struck him and drew blood.

"The meteor shower's already starting," he warned as a slightly larger rock hit close enough he could feel it go by.

"I'll be in soon," Diamond finally answered him.

"It's dangerous."

"Then go inside."

"What are you doing?"

"Nothing. Don't be annoying," the young prince told his brother.

"Sorry."

After a while he said, "I've heard that on Earth there's water that falls from the sky."

Sapphire thought of someone throwing a bucket of water into the air and letting it fall down. "Why would anyone do that?"

"The planet does it. Like hitting an asteroid field for a meteor shower. They must have clouds of water in their orbit."

"Oh. Isn't water soft?"

Diamond turned around and looked at him for the first time. "You're bleeding."

"It's nothing," he said, even as a new slash formed on his cheek. "My wards as weak. I'm not."

"I'm going in now. Come on."

Blue Sapphire scowled that his brother thought so little of his toughness. "Did you not want to go to the cavern party?"

Diamond sighed. "I was scarce going to avoid it until the meteor shower lets up."

"Cousin Emerald wants to dance with you."

He sighed again. "Yes, I know, brother. Maybe I'll spend the night with Yellow Citrine, she's empty-headed enough not to be involved in the plotting. You stay with Cousin Topaz and far away from Green Emerald."


	2. Star of Nemesis

Title: Star of Nemesis  
Disclaimer: I don't own Sailor Moon.  
Version: Anime

"I know why Crystal Tokyo is able to counter our attacks like they know what's coming," said Prince Diamond, low and dark.

"You do?"

"There is a spy in our midst. Our enemies couldn't plant one but they didn't have to. Our own Nemesis betrays us."

"What do you mean, brother?" Both Sapphire and Rubeus added, "I'll vouch for the Ayakashi sisters."

"I know it's not them. This is Black Moon Clan business. Since there is a Senshi born for each planet, there is one on ours too."

Everyone in the clan looked around at their sisters and female cousins, as few members of the Black Moon Clan as there were in this late generation. Eyes wandered towards Green Emerald, who was the loudest alpha female, if not Diamond's consort like she wanted to be.

She flapped her fan spastically and nearly dropped it. Diamond's gaze passed over her without stopping, as it never did, to the orange-haired woman at his little brother's shoulder. "Don't worry, Emerald, I'm not accusing out of hand. You're not surprised I called you here, Cousin Topaz."

"We should leave Earth alone. I've always said this is wrong. I am what I am but I have not been acting against the Clan dishonorably."

"That's why she's been with me on Nemesis," insisted Sapphire. "Topaz is no dirty spy." Despite her words, he added, "Or Senshi!"

"Get away from the traitor, Sapphire."

"Do as he tells you."

"Cousin!"

"This is between the two of us, little brother."

"Don't kill her!"

"Banish her or something," Rubeus insisted on his sister's behalf and his cousins chimed in in agreement.

Sapphire cried as Citrine yanked him away from the one-sided fight, and even Emerald stopped Rubeus from charging in to try to stop their family from further breaking down.


	3. Strongest Power

Or, "To quote Xykon, Order of the Stick 657".

Title: Strongest Power  
Disclaimer: I don't own Sailor Moon. Or OotS for that matter.  
Version: Anime

"The most powerful force in the universe is Love!" Green Emerald announced grandiosely. "I won't loose."

"No," said Wiseman dryly, "it really isn't."

"It's what Sailor Moon claims as her power. My love is just as strong as hers."

"That may be. It works out well enough for her because she's the Messiah in a very optimistic setting. It doesn't do anyone else much good."

"Like who?"

"Didn't help Beryl much or Zoisite or Kouan or Petz and Sapphire really is a useless whiner."

"Love isn't real when it becomes obsession." Unlike hers for Prince Diamond.

"It didn't do Seiya or Tomoe much good." All verb tenses were equally valid when you were a time traveler.

"What is the source of strength then?"

"I'm gonna say power," the hooded man said lightly. "You know what power equals? Power. Power equals power. If you don't think everything can be solved with power, then you don't have enough of it or enough imagination."

"Can you give me that then? If not, stop wasting my time." She flipped her hair contemptuously.

"Of course I can," Wiseman said, though after she'd left he added, "Though it certainly helps if you also have an int score higher than that of a half-orc barbarian."


	4. Green Eyed

Title: Green Eyed  
Disclaimer: I don't own Sailor Moon  
Version: Anime

"I hate you!"

"What's bothering you now?"

"You like your new brother more than me!"

The little boy, five or six, sighed like one much older. "He needs me right now. I haven't forgotten you. You're still you, Emerald."

"I hate him."

"Stop whining. Don't be a green eyed monster."

She kicked him in the shin. "Stupid!"

It stung but the son of the Prince wasn't going to hop around on one leg, even, or perhaps especially in front of his cousin. "I mean that I love you for you, Emerald. That will always be unique and special to me."

Diamond kissed her below the eye and left her standing wide-eyed with a hand to her cheek. For all her tantrums, her devotion was remarkably easy to ensure. The young prince left the little girl to pine.


	5. Support Beam

Title: Support Beam  
Disclaimer: I don't own Sailor Moon  
Version: Manga

"How much longer are you going to keep getting fat, Mama?"

"Just another month now," the regal woman said, patting her young son the head. "Then you'll have a little brother or sister who will help you secure your throne one day."

Diamond squinted his eyes. "My throne. That's why you killed Father, right? He was a threat to my throne."

"Right. You will inherit your uncle's throne as Prince of Nemesis and your father was a dangerous liability."

"What about the baby?"

"I'm going to raise this baby to support you utterly as best I can. But if it proves a threat or a rival too strong to be conquered but weaker than you I'll kill it."

Diamond nodded but then his face took on a childish expression more suited to his age. "I hope it's a boy. I'd rather have an annoying, dumb younger brother like cousin Rubeus or Bixbite than a girl like cousin Emerald."


	6. Appearances

Title: Appearances  
Disclaimer: I don't own Sailor Moon  
Version: Anime

"Nightmare?"

"Yes."

"Grow up."

He sniffed. "You'd rather it have been an assassination attempt?"

"That's what I almost mistook you for. Don't come barging in here or I'll kill you in my sleep."

"Sorry." He didn't look sorry and he didn't leave.

"Stop crawling to other people. Everyone will see and they'll think you're weak."

"I'm useless to you if I'm weak then? Since I am?"

"I know what you are. You can't survive on Nemesis; if people think they can kill you, they will."

"And if I make them think I'm not worth the effort?"

"Then get smarter in constructing a façade than acting like a brat."

"No one thinks anything of me already, younger prince or not. I'm an alchemist, magically useless, bookish, cowardly…"

"Too soft, too sensitive, too honest, too loyal, too whole-hearted," Diamond listed, then pulled back his blankets. "Since you're here you might as well stay until you can sleep. But don't come to me again."


	7. In the Dark

It's pointless worldbuilding.

Title: In the Dark  
Disclaimer: I don't own Sailor Moon  
Version: Anime

How did the Black Moon Clan come about then?

The first question to answer is when. The original rebellion and exile were eight or nine years after Neo-Queen Serenity melted the thousand years of Ice. They awakened the demon in the dead rock, dark crystal, and its shrouded avatar. They fled the light of Crystal Tokyo and, in one burst of power that exhausted them for generations, moved in time. They landed about a thousand years earlier, a little after the Ice encompassed Earth, and Nemesis floated out in the cold, between lost, empty Pluto and the longer deserted Kuiper belt.

A thousand years passed on the slow path. They learned time travel more easily than most, a natural trait of those who lived in that region of the solar system. The four sisters were recruited secretly as young girls for their magic and their recent knowledge of the Earthlings in the last generation of Nemesis. Prince Diamond approached Neo-Queen Serenity in the fifth year of her reign. Negotiation broke down and he attacked. The princess escaped to four years before the Millennium of Ice and was followed by the timeships of the Sisters Ayakashi and their handler Rubeus.

The princess returned to Crystal Tokyo with the Tokyoan senshi and destroyed Nemesis five years after she had been born. The sisters were trapped in the past, relived the Ice, and two timesplit versions of them existed until the War. The ancestors of the Black Moon rebelled a few years later.

So what were all those fifty generations in the dark like? There were never that many of them. They started as noble patriots to their cause. Within a few generations they had forgotten why, more than that their ancestors were rebels criminalized and unjustly persecuted by Crystal Tokyo. The new, mysterious advisor to the president turned prince, Wiseman, _helped_.

Resources were limited. Heck, there wasn't a sun. Everything had to be done by magic, from producing heat and atmosphere to building and manufacturing to growing food. They used eugenics to selectively breed for magical ability. They lost their incest taboos very early on. Marriage, monogamy, and even a stable family became things of the lost past. Drunkenness, debauchery, and Babylonian, Dionysian revel reigned. Such a people normally would have gone completely matrilineal, but magic made it possible, rather than completely unreasonable, to record paternity on the lineage charts. It worked, all things considered. It resulted in a horribly inbred population, but a magical one.

The planet wanted the people to be evil. It's not sustainable, it's not _natural_ on a sociological level for there to be a culture of evil people making virtue of ambition and betrayal and murder. Australia is not populated solely by criminals. Therefore it must be unnatural, created and maintained by the Black Crystals.

It could not destroy what made them human but it could turn it against them, twist it. It couldn't stop Blue Sapphire from loving Diamond or his brother from loving him but it could keep them suspicious of each other. It couldn't stop Sapphire and Petz from coming together but it could push them apart. It couldn't stop Kouan from loving Rubeus but it could use it to make her blind. It could not stop Emerald from loving Diamond but it could turn that love into obsession excluding all else. It couldn't stop Diamond from loving Serenity but it could turn that into a need to posses.

That part was the easiest. On Nemesis one could only believe in that which one completely owned. And yet Clan was clan. It held together somehow. It was family.


	8. In Hostile Soil

Title: In Hostile Soil  
Disclaimer: I don't own Sailor Moon  
Version: Anime

Orange Topaz was as surprised at the miniskirt was anyone else. Actually, no one else was surprised because she was practicing alone out in the asteroid cloud.

"What in the nine hells? I wouldn't be caught dead in this."

It didn't take her any time to see the irony in that. If she was caught in this, she would be dead. If ever there was a crime the Black Moon Clan would never forgive, it was looking like the Enemy.

"Sailor Nemesis, eh?" She could feel the heartbeat of the planet, the cold stone in her crystal earrings. She took them off. The casual gesture felt wrong, unnatural. A member of the Clan never took off her earrings, ever. It felt colder without them, but the Death Phantom, the dark god, felt further away. She could still feel him, the lifeblood of her people, but his miasma was lifted from her mind and she felt steadiness in the place of temper, acceptance in the place of her lies to herself, caring in the place of rivalry.

"Topaz? Are you out here? Bixbite said you were."

Sapphire. Of all times. She closed her eyes tight and willed away short black skirt, orange bows, black collar, black tipped white gloves, and orange-topped black boots. An orange shirt just pulled tight over her cleavage, dark brown pants and vest, and short black boots and fingerless gloves. Please. Please. Please. She didn't want this, had been unlucky enough to have been the one born with something wrong with her this generation sure as if she'd been born blind.

"Topaz?" He didn't sound shocked so she opened her eyes. "Didn't you hear me?"

"Sorry, cousin. I was lost in thought." She deplored lying but if ever there was a time in life to avoid a topic and keep a secret it was now.

"How'd training going?"

She shrugged, really, really not wanting to call up her magic just then. "How are the droids?"

"Great! I just finished a new one." Sapphire could always be counted on to want to talk about droids. "Do you want to see?"

Topaz kissed him, making it clear they were going back to his room and wouldn't be looking at engineering feats for a while. "I think I'm falling in love with you."

Sapphire, who wore his earrings yet, didn't quite get it. But wanting and calling the emptiness not quite filled love was perfectly familiar to Nemesis, and so, she knew, was loving and not noticing what it meant. And that was a crime the Death Phantom would never forgive.


	9. Shibuya Scramble

Title: Shibuya Scramble  
Disclaimer: I don't own Sailor Moon

The first thing about Earth was that it was full of people. The actual list was endless but this stood out. The population of Nemesis, particularly in these modern times, was such that she knew by face and name every member of the Black Moon Clan and droid servant. At this place, lights changed color and more people than she'd seen in her life walked across an open stone square.

She stood on a short pole just high enough for her to see over the crowd in front of Shibuya station. The ships went so fast when people weren't walking. She was sure it must be unbearably slow compared to interplanetary travel speeds but so many and so close. And the see-through viewports. They could do that since they were atmospheric travel vehicles, though why they weren't just using scrying to see out she didn't know.

The people were so weird looking too. Hair was mostly black with a little bit of frosted blonde or washed out henna-red on a few women. The clothes were bright and varied though, not like each person only having one or two outfits painstakingly conjured at home… no, not home anymore. Layers of shirts and over shirts, many belts and gloves, hair ribbons, shiny jewelry and accessories everywhere. Orange Topaz felt terribly out of place.

Some of the young women were dressed similarly to her senshi outfit, and they tended to also have darker skin and lighter hair, along with odd baggy socks and elaborate eye makeup. They probably couldn't tell the difference between a real senshi and one dressed like one. Topaz had no modesty or awareness that magic was rare, so thought nothing of transforming her clothes in public. Fortunately, senshi magic that kept anyone from recognizing a scout's civilian form kept anyone from noticing.

She desired food and sleep and spare parts for her ship, but did not know where among the bright neon lights and flashing colors to find it. There were no signs on Nemesis let alone advertisement, and she could barely read, and she hadn't figured out the words were related to the locations.

"Hey, are you alright?"

"Why would I not be?" Never admit weakness. Why was this young man speaking to her?

"You have bandages all over. Were you in an accident?"

She checked quickly but her bandages weren't even bled through. What was the fuss? They'd mostly closed up and everything. "No accident. Only my cousin throwing me out."

"Did you go to the police about it?"

"What is that?"

"What is what?"

"Police." At his blank look she deemed this topic of conversation useless. "Where is your abode?"

"Abode? You mean my apartment? I'm not from Shibuya; I'm from Roppongi."

This meant nothing to her. She must find someone to order to put her up for the night, since she had no one in her not-anymore-clan to do it willingly. But she must not draw attention, lest the evil Crystal palace that exiled her ancestors notice her. An exile from the Clan and Crystal Tokyo. Keep your head down.

"Where is this?" She could always teleport even if her ship needed work. "Are there unoccupied suites? Is there someone like…" Sapphire. "Are there mechanics there?"

"Yeah, they're mechanics. Are you looking to rent an apartment or stay for the night? You won't be able to rent something on the spot."

"Stay for the night." She didn't want to stay in a place that would soon be embroiled in war with her clan. Get her ship fixed, find someway to serve her family and the terms of her banishment, to be a senshi but not betray them willfully.

"How much money do you have?"

"Money?"

"Are you foreign? American or something?" He held up a flat rectangular thing with pretty pictures on it.

"Like this?" She reached into the pocket in the folds of her skirt for some of the rock she used to transmute with and studied the thing carefully, its line and color and texture and bend in the wind. She produced an object superficially resembling the bill despite having never seen paper let alone currency before.

"I know a good love hotel near here. Shibuya's probably better for that, particularly since you're already here and won't have to catch the Yamanote then Hibiya or bus over."

"Bus?"

"Let's just go, eh? Not, like, together. Not that I'm suggesting anything."

Topaz jumped down, her skirt flying up and falling back down, something she gave no mind to. Maybe a few cuts Diamond had given her still hurt a little at the impact, maybe. "Lead, Earthling."


	10. Magical Girlfriend

Disclaimer: Still don't own Sailor Moon.

**Magical Girlfriend**

So now Kenta had a girlfriend, which was cool. Who was living with him, which was cooler even if it made him feel like Urashima Keitarou. Who was a magical girlfriend, like Belldandy to his Keiichi. Who was sleeping with him, had practically jumped him, which was just weird and made him feel like a Satou Tatsuhiro who had fallen down a rabbit hole. Got to remember that she was the crazy one.

"I need parts to repair my spaceship. Dark crystals, maintenance droids, doom priests."

Sometimes that bit wasn't that hard. "What?"

"Not again." She looked annoyed, like his failure to understand was his fault, and shoved another omelet roll into her mouth. "I'm a fair mechanic, but my ship is dying. I may be in exile, but I hate to be trapped. More."

He gave Topaz the rest of the eggs and another mug of miso soup. He was going to have to buy more dishes. He'd complain she was eating him out of house and home, as he had when she'd gone through all the cup ramen he had within two days, but her magical money counterfeiting was paying for her. He didn't think of himself as much of a cook, but it was nice to see her vast appreciation, as though this were the best food she'd ever had.

"I don't have any classes today, so I can take you out to every automechanic in town if you want." As far as he could tell, she was agoraphobic from her space alien yakuza sheltered background and never went anywhere without him but his apartment or the shed behind the building where she was keeping her giant chunk of black crystal. If it hadn't been for a couple years of Sailor V and Sailor Moon in the news, he wouldn't have believed this.

"Auto?"

"Car."

"Ah, those atmospheric ground-ships. Yes, I want to go there."

"Street clothes," he directed. It was probably a good thing she didn't go out on her own, but the difficulty of taking her anywhere meant he'd had to shop for her and do a lot of guessing of size.

But better safe than sorry. The medical student friend he'd finally convinced her to see had given her over a hundred stitches over her body and pronounced her right eye completely ruined. Not to mention numerous other noticeable but older scars. So, a long coat, long skirt, mirrored sunglasses, surgical mask, cap pulled over her hair and the black crescent moon on her forehead she was intensely paranoid about anyone seeing for some reason. She looked like a yanki, but that was rather unavoidable, particularly with her foreign or unnatural hair color.

Topaz held his hand tightly when they got out of the elevator. He didn't get her sometimes. She ignored her major injuries but had cried when he first took her to Yoyogi Park. She had sex with him but said she was in love with someone named Sapphire. She was fascinated by new clothes and junk around his apartment but had almost taken his head off (literally) when he offered to buy her earrings for the mostly-closed holes in her ears that her fingers tended to absently worry.

She picked up a newspaper out of a recycling can (headline: 'Sailor Mars fights monstrous aerobics instructor!'), but that was fairly low on the scale of faux-pauses. "Kenta, what's that?"

"A bird."

"That?"

"A bakery. Do you have your train card?"

"Yes." She held it up and orange sparks danced between her fingers. She'd probably magically put ten thousand yen on it or something. He tried not to go crazy with money. He had nightmares of the police knocking any day already.

"Good." On the train, he read her the article about the Sailor Senshi in the newspaper that she pointed to the picture of to pass the time. "Now this first place is where a friend of mine goes to get parts to repair his motorcycle. You can look around."

Her response was dispiriting, her familiar look of complete incomprehension of her surroundings. "Fixing a car is completely different than fixing a magical spaceship, isn't it?"

"Not remotely similar. Kenta, how do you learn to do this?"

"This? Cars? Technical college, I suppose. Why?"

"Apprentice me there."

"You want to enroll, you mean? I guess you could magic your way in, but you just said this wasn't anything like what you wanted."

"But I haven't seen any sign that what I want exists. You make things move with your wires and your electricity."

"They're not mine," he felt the need to point out.

"If I can learn to interface some of the local techniques, I can save my magic to preserve enough of those essential systems of my ship that I can't replace."

"There's a tech school right beside my university, I think. I'll bring you a brochure. Then read it to you. You really do need to learn to read."

"I'm trying. I don't see why you need so many runes." She was pouting. It was kind of cute.

"Do you want to look at more garages or go home now?"

"Ice cream?" She squeezed his hand harder in childish anticipation of her suggestion.

"Sure." What else could he say to the cute and totally-out-of-his-league girl on his arm?


	11. Dowager Behind the Throne

Title: Dowager Behind the Throne  
Disclaimer: I don't own Sailor Moon  
Rating: PG

Chalcedony looked uninterested as Prince Mozarkite ate. Wiseman had given her the poison, so it would work and she had his support. She kept looking uninterested even as he convulsed and fell to the ground.

She closed the door quietly behind her as she left, though letting it slam shut wouldn't have mattered. "Is it done?" Geyserite asked her frantically.

She kissed him, lest he forget she was not giving up power as consort. The baby she carried might be his, might be his dead brother's; genetic scan would tell when it was born, little as it mattered. "You are Prince now." She had no plan to declare herself Princess. She hadn't the raw power and her nearest royal ancestor was Princess Bloodstone four generations back. This was for her son.

Chalcedony went to find her son to tell him she had done away with his increasingly erratic and violent father. He was asleep in the nursery, as were her brothers' daughters. Were they trying to insinuate them among White Diamond's entourage as potential consorts? More likely their mothers had forgotten they existed again and they'd wandered off.

Why had the previous, now the twice-previous, prince consorted with that empty-headed floozy? It would take ages to get that much stupid out of the already inbred gene pool. Chalcedony's sister's daughter was much smarter and steady, but maybe too willful. Maybe a threat to her son, particularly if her second child was also strong enough to rule. Emerald, her youngest brother's daughter, was at least enamored of Diamond. Her other droid-stupid niece, Citrine, favored her sister's son Rubeus, at least for the moment. They were all many years from puberty anyway, so she had plenty of time to plan and direct.

"Diamond. Wake up, dear." She smoothed his hair. "I have something to tell you." He was awake instantly, because that was how one survived on Nemesis.


	12. Escaping the Burn

Title: Escaping the Burn  
Disclaimer: I don't own Sailor Moon

Without its keystone crystal, the spaceship was quickly breaking apart. Fuel and atmosphere mixed, setting everything on fire. Smoke rose, so he should be better off lying on the floor. Somehow that wasn't reassuring with his face on the hard, sharp crystal and dripping sweat from the fire not burning him yet.

Crimson Rubeus considered rolling over. The idea of burning to death lying on his back didn't sound significantly more pleasant than on his stomach, so he didn't. Maybe there'd be fewer nerves this way. The ship was unsavable and fighting Sailor Moon had left him far too weak to teleport without its help.

"Get up."

"Are you here to mock me?"

"You idiot. You think Emerald's here to save you and I'm here not to. What a terrible judge of character."

"Why?"

"I'd have done it if nothing else because you talked Diamond down from execution to exile. But I can do what I want because I love my brother."

He propped himself up on his elbows to look at her through the smoke. That didn't sound like something the Topaz he'd known would have said. The hazy figure didn't convince him this wasn't a hallucination. Obviously his mind was making this up to escape the unbearable pain he must be in.

She stepped closer. It had the look of her as he'd last seen her, not clad as a sailor senshi as he'd imagined her since. Her orange hair was longer and shaggier and covered her face, though shifts as she moved revealed hints of scars. Visible through the mess, he noticed, were her ears, bare of black crystal earrings unlike before.

"The little wimp stopped wearing them too after you left."

"Hurry." When he wasn't moving fast enough, she hoisted him up. The change in the air left him coughing but suddenly aware he was alive.

"This is real."

"It's going to explode any second now."

She practically threw him into her ship, showing no regard as he fell without her holding him up, as she shut and sealed the door. Moments later the whole ship rocked violently and spilled end-over-end.

Topaz went to the control crystal, cooed over it, stroke it, poured magic into it. It was weak in power but lively, he could sense. It was surprising it had lasted this long away from Nemesis, even if it had been technically made to be able to do so. He'd never seen a ship so small, barely large enough for the two of them, and it was scattered with strange wires and sparking bits of Earth technology. Whatever she had done, it had kept it alive.

"Emerald's changed, you know," he said to justify himself. "She saved my life the night you were banished. She held me back from getting between you and the prince."

"I remember. You can't go back, you know, brother. She was right about not being able to live in disgrace."

"I know. I want to live; I can live without my honor or my home. I'm a coward as well as a failure, I suppose."

"Do you want me to take you back to your girl? I know she's a traitor to the Clan, but though she and her sisters are in hiding, I can find her."

"She's not my girl. I don't care about her. I dare say even she's realized that by now. I suppose you're the only woman I've ever respected, sister."

Topaz groaned in annoyance like she always did when he tried to butter her up. "You can come with me but not forever. By the time I've gotten impatient, you'd better have thought of where you want me to leave you, or I'm just dumping you. I'll start growing a bud on my control crystal and in a few years you might even have your own new ship if you nurture it right."

"You're the best, sister."


End file.
